René Goossens

If Yes, Okay

The Spijkerbergs are an absurdly rich family, but they are also richly absurd. The father – a foolish, hotshot financier – collects miniature dioramas of historical atrocities as a hobby. Mother is a has-been prima donna fighting against the vagaries of age and fame. Inheriting their privilege and casual cruelty is daughter Amy, a rebellious if somewhat insular teenager longing to break out of her gilded cage. To gain a semblance of control over her cocooned existence, Amy produces an autobiographical mock-Kabuki performance that parodies her family.

Summer

Sixteen-year-old Anne grows up in the isolated Biesbosch area, where spacious fields and power pylons define the landscape. With a group of friends, she spends a sultry summer holiday there trying to make the leap to maturity. But this shared experience turns into a conflict situation when Anna develops feelings for the tough girl Lena. Coming-of-age drama about growing pains, the inevitable end of childhood and choosing your own life - no matter how confusing your environment may find it.

Above Us All

Following her mother's death, an 11-year-old indigenous Australian girl named Shay moves with her father and brother to Belgium. Shay finds that her grief is readily accepted in her new town, which still bears scars from World War I.

Valentin

Valentin, a 9-year-old boy living with his grandmother in late-1960s Buenos Aires, believes his family has problems that only he can solve. The youngster dreams of being reunited with his mother, who's separated from Valentin's abusive father.

On the Old Roman Road

In Holland, a group of Armenian terrorists have swung into action, murdering a Turkish intelligence agent and holding his son for ransom. As the battle of wits between the terrorists and the Dutch police plays itself out, an author from Armenia living in Rotterdam finds himself following the events as he thinks back on his life in his homeland, indulging in fantasies about his past, his future, and his obsessions.

The Sea That Thinks

Incredible optical illusions in a story in a story in a story helps the surprised viewer finally to find out that he has been watching himself all along.

The Letter

Petar is an intruder. He has skills to break into people’s lifes, to break into their privacies. He observes, examins, studies them. He brings people’s lifes to numbers, to simple statistical data. Data by which he comprehends the chaos. The chaos of life. And just as God, Petar only observes lives and does not interfere with the events. However, it is not in a human nature to remain distant and not to interfere with the reality at all. Especially not when Petar’s help is desperately needed. When he sees himself as the ultimate savior of somebody’s life Petar has to act.But for the people, the line between benevolence and crime is so thin that they can not clearly distinguish these two. They can’t recognize and trust an altruism without suspicion. They are bound to disfigure and misjudge any atempt for openhearted aid and call it a fraud or concealed attempt for an assault. Therefore, the savior has to be destroyed.

Brittle

The parents of five sisters have been married for forty years; the daughters have gathered in the family beach house to make a video for them. The encounter is marked by many confrontations as well as cheerful moments. Reminiscent of the sweet children's poems that mother recited are countered by Elsschot's Marriage: 'He thought: I'll kill her and set light to the house...' It also turns out that father had once disappeared for eighteen months, a 'secret' that the daughters have different ideas about. Brittle, an intimate film version of a play written and performed by the same actresses, is about rivalry in a family, the right to silence, but also about the need for solidarity. At the Netherlands Film Festival in 1997 the Golden Calf for Best Actress was awarded to the five actresses together.

De kersenpluk

De Kersenpluk tells the story about Jan visiting his grandfather for the last time during the summer in a little village in Drenthe. Thanks to Jan, his grandfather decides to do what he never dared during his entire life. Jan, as an outsider, is some sort of spectator of the life in the village, although he is also involved in that life.

Belle van Zuylen - Madame de Charrière

A biography of Isabelle de Charrière and her friendship with Benjamin Constant.

Above the Mountains

Six people are about to undertake a journey by foot from the very north of the Netherlands to the very south, in search of the mountains. Only two of them reach the destination.